33

2—A 2B

next Assembly of the United Nations. It would assist the Committee in thinking through the problem and at arriving at helpful recommendations for the future government of Palestine. It is illogical, I fear, to ask the Committee of Inquiry to consider the future government of Palestine without first making a thorough study of the present Government to discover what was faulty in the present administration, what neglect and what deviations occurred to have brought about a condition so dangerous and explosive as to necessitate the convoking of a Special Session of the United Nations to deal with it. I believe that the Committee of Inquiry should most certainly visit Palestine. Written documents are important, but infinitely more instructive are the living documents, the visible testimony of creative effort and achievement. In Palestine they will see what the Jewish people, inspired by the hope of reconstituting this national home after the long weary centuries of their homelessness and relying upon the honour and the pledged word of the world community, has achieved in a few short years against great odds and seemingly insurmountable handicaps. The task was enormous —untrained hands, inadequate means, overwhelming difficulties. The land was stripped and poor, neglected through the centuries. And the period of building took place between two> disastrous world wars, when European Jewry was shattered and impoverished. Nevertheless, the record of pioneering achievement of the Jewish people in Palestine has received the acclaim of the entire world. And what was built there with social vision and high human idealism has proved a blessing, we believe, not only to the Jews of Palestine, but to the Arabs and to other non-Jewish communities as well. That the return of the Jews to Palestine would prove a blessing not only to themselves, but also to their Arab neighbours was envisaged by the Emir Feisal, who was a great leader of the Arab peoples, at the Peace Conference following the First World War. On 3 March, 1919, he wrote : "We Arabs look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement. Our deputation here in Paris is fully acquainted with the proposals submitted yesterday by the Zionist organization to the Peace Conference, and we regard them as moderate and proper. We will do our best, in so far as we are concerned, to help them through. We will wish the Jews a most hearty welcome home. I look forward, and my people with me look forward, to a future in which we will help you and you will help us so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their places in the community of civilized peoples of the world." Your Committee of Inquiry will conclude, we are confident, that if allowed to develop uninterruptedly the standards of life which have been developed in Palestine, the concepts of social justice, and the modern scientific method will serve as a great stimulus to the rebirth and progress of the entire Near East, with which Palestine and with which the destinies of the Jewish national home are naturally bound up. Your Committee of Inquiry should also consider the potentialities of the country which, if properly developed, can, according to the expert testimony of those most qualified to speak on the subject, sustain a population much greater than the present one. Many more projects, which will result in great economic and social improvement not alone in Palestine, but in all the neighbouring countries, are awaiting development pending a satisfactory political solution.